Brevissime 2026 at the Stefano Bardini Museum
From March 5, a series of lectures open to the public on the great fractures in art history
The new edition of Brevissime. Lessons in Art History is set to begin, the cultural outreach series that brings the great history of art out of academic classrooms and into one of the city’s most fascinating venues: the Museo Stefano Bardini, in collaboration with the Musei Civici Fiorentini.
The title chosen for this edition – “Rupture. Moments, Figures and Materials that Diverted the Course of History” – is a clear statement of intent: each lecture explores a fracture, a deviation, an innovative gesture capable of generating new cultural trajectories. From books that transformed our image of the cosmos to artworks that challenged established visual canons, and from materials that reshaped patronage and audiences, the 2026 season confirms itself as a key event for anyone seeking high-level yet accessible art history lectures in Florence.
The 2026 program: from Galileo to Caravaggio, the great turning points in art history
The cycle opens on March 5 with Michele Dantini presenting Non-Rupture: A Counter-History of Italian Art in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century. The professor at the University for Foreigners of Perugia offers an alternative reading of Italian postwar art, exploring the relationship between political discontinuities and the persistence of memory in the works of Lucio Fontana and Alberto Burri.
On March 12, Filippo Camerota, Scientific Director of the Museo Galileo, examines the revolution brought by Galileo Galilei’s Sidereus Nuncius: in 1610, the treatise definitively shattered the ancient image of the sky, marking one of the most radical “ruptures” in the history of Western thought.
On March 26, Aldo Galli guides the audience through the rediscovery of fifteenth-century terracotta, a material that contributed to a true democratization of sculpture, expanding both audiences and patronage.
On April 2, Thomas C. Salomon focuses on Gian Lorenzo Bernini and the Baroque revolution, also born from his collaboration with Pope Urban VIII: a figurative language destined to redefine forever the idea of art as a total spectacle.
On April 16, Claudio Paolini reconstructs Florence between 1940 and 1943, detailing the strategies adopted to protect the city’s artistic heritage during World War II and dispelling the myth of a city shielded from conflict.
On April 23, Camilla Pietrabissa investigates the emergence of landscape as a modern genre, analyzing its cultural and political implications.
On May 7, American historian Michèle K. Spike presents Three Women for Florence, dedicated to three figures decisive for the city’s history: Matilde di Canossa, Mary of Nazareth, and Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici.
On May 14, Mario Iozzo leads the audience to the Athens of Phidias, exploring the Parthenon and the birth of the “classical,” a key turning point in Western art history.
The cycle concludes on May 21 with Alessandro Morandotti, who focuses on Caravaggio and the founding of a new figurative tradition: a radical rupture where light and shadow, naturalism and dramatic tension, signal the beginning of modernity.
Brevissime. Lezioni di storia delle arti
Museo Stefano Bardini
Piazza de’ Mozzi, Firenze
From March 5, 2026
Tickets can only be purchased online HERE